Pioneering Cell Transplant Shows Vision and Promise

March 31, 2017

(Nature) – On 28 March, the same team carried out a procedure that sounds similar, but with an important twist. This time, the retinal repair cells were made using iPS cells from an anonymous donor. There are many things to say about this achievement. The first is congratulations. Takahashi, an ophthalmologist at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, and Kurimoto, a surgeon at the Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital, have moved iPS-cell technology towards the clinic in the way it should be done — slowly and cautiously — and have thereby set a great precedent. They had non-human primate data, they rigorously tested cells before using them, and when they found a genetic abnormality in the first study — even though it was one that they didn’t think would cause cancer — they called off the procedure and were open about the abnormality.